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Trailblazer Travel Books a series of five recreational guides for the Hawaiian Islands plus one each for Sierra Nevada, and San Francisco. They are published by California-based Diamond Valley Company and written by Janine and Jerry Sprout. In 2012, they published "No Worries Paris: A Photographic Walking Guide." Janine Sprout is of French heritage and has photographed the city over a period of decades.
The guides are aimed at the independent, adventurous travelers. The Sprouts have spent years developing the content and publish revised or new editions yearly. Aside from being well-organized resources for travelers, Trailblazers seek to support the economy based around cultural sites and recreational resources, thereby helping to preserve them.
The books are comprehensive when it comes to outdoor muscle-powered sports—hiking, biking, skiing, kayaking, snorkeling, and surfing. They also include historic town strolls, gardens, museums, popular tourist attractions, and archeological sites. Trailblazers also include standard guidebook fare, such as accommodations and restaurants, though they tend to limit this section to the top places. More than 200 photos and maps illustrate the text. They also publish, No Worries Hawaii, a vacation planning guide for Kauai, Oahu, Maui, and the Big Island, which, among other things, includes a "self-test" that allows readers unfamiliar with the Islands to select the locale that works best for them. Also in the series is "No Worries Paris: A Photographic Walking Guide."
In 2013, they published "Lifeguide: How to Get from Where You Are to Where You Want to Be," the company's first venture into the self-help genre. The most recent publication (2021) is "Range of Light Trailblazer: An Adventure Travel Guide from the High Sierra East to Death Valley."
The Sprouts have traveled the American West together for more than thirty years. Janine, of French descent, is a photographer and a graphic designer whose work has included Harry Potter licensed products. She studied at UC Davis, California College of Arts and Crafts, Universita de Bella Arte (Perugia), and Oregon School of Arts & Crafts. She also headed the Nevada State Museum's public information department. Jerry is a Stanford graduate (football scholarship) who worked as a newspaper reporter in San Rafael, California. He is a former licensed psychologist who evaluated youth programs for several California counties, and later was an administrator at the largest private program for high-risk male juvenile offenders. His novel, American Boys Camp, was purchased by Universal Studios. Jerry Sprout is a native of Portland, Oregon; Janine was born in San Francisco.
The Oregon Trail was a 2,170-mile (3,490 km) east–west, large-wheeled wagon route and emigrant trail in the United States that connected the Missouri River to valleys in Oregon Territory. The eastern part of the Oregon Trail crossed what is now the states of Kansas, Nebraska, and Wyoming. The western half crossed the current states of Idaho and Oregon.
Northern California is a geographic and cultural region that comprises the northern portion of the U.S. state of California, spanning the northernmost 48 of the state's 58 counties. Northern California in its largest definition is determined by dividing the state into two regions, the other being Southern California. The main northern population centers include the San Francisco Bay Area, the Greater Sacramento area, the Redding, California, area south of the Cascade Range, and the Metropolitan Fresno area. Northern California also contains redwood forests, along with most of the Sierra Nevada, including Yosemite Valley and part of Lake Tahoe, Mount Shasta, and most of the Central Valley, one of the world's most productive agricultural regions. Northern California is also home to Silicon Valley, the global headquarters for some of the most powerful tech and Internet-related companies in the world, including Meta, Apple, Google, and Nvidia.
U.S. Route 395, also known as U.S. Highway 395, is a north–south United States Numbered Highway that traverses the inland areas of the western states of California, Nevada, Oregon, and Washington. It travels for over 1,300 miles (2,100 km) from a junction in the Mojave Desert at Interstate 15 (I-15) in Hesperia to the Canada–U.S. border near Laurier, Washington. Major cities along its route include Carson City and Reno in Nevada; Kennewick and Pasco in Washington's Tri-Cities region; and Spokane, Washington. US 395 is an auxiliary route of US 95 but never intersects its parent route, which runs further east.
The Pacific Coast Ranges are the series of mountain ranges that stretch along the West Coast of North America from Alaska south to Northern and Central Mexico. Although they are commonly thought to be the westernmost mountain range of the continental United States and Canada, the geologically distinct Insular Mountains of Vancouver Island lie farther west.
The Gold Country is a historic region in the northern portion of the U.S. state of California, that is primarily on the western slope of the Sierra Nevada. It is famed for the mineral deposits and gold mines that attracted waves of immigrants, known as the 49ers, during the 1849 California Gold Rush.
Pineapple Express is a specific recurring atmospheric river both in the waters immediately northeast of the Hawaiian Islands and extending northeast to any location along the Pacific coast of North America. It is a non-technical term and a meteorological phenomenon. It is characterized by a strong and persistent large-scale flow of warm moist air, and the associated heavy precipitation. A Pineapple Express is an example of an atmospheric river, which is a more general term for such relatively narrow corridors of enhanced water vapor transport at mid-latitudes around the world.
The California Trail was an emigrant trail of about 1,600 mi (2,600 km) across the western half of the North American continent from Missouri River towns to what is now the state of California. After it was established, the first half of the California Trail followed the same corridor of networked river valley trails as the Oregon Trail and the Mormon Trail, namely the valleys of the Platte, North Platte, and Sweetwater rivers to Wyoming. The trail has several splits and cutoffs for alternative routes around major landforms and to different destinations, with a combined length of over 5,000 mi (8,000 km).
Makiki is an area of Honolulu, Hawaiʻi, located northeast of downtown Honolulu, stretching east to west from Punahou Street to Pensacola Street and north to south from Round Top Drive/Makiki Heights Drive to Lunalilo Freeway. Punchbowl, an extinct tuff cone, and Tantalus overlook the Makiki.
Donner Pass is a 7,056-foot-high (2,151 m) mountain pass in the northern Sierra Nevada, above Donner Lake and Donner Memorial State Park about 9 miles (14 km) west of Truckee, California. Like the Sierra Nevada themselves, the pass has a steep approach from the east and a gradual approach from the west.
Mount Morgan is the highest point on Nevahbe Ridge in the Sherwin Range of the Sierra Nevada. It lies in Mono County, California, between McGee Canyon and Hilton Lakes. The mountain is in the John Muir Wilderness Area in the Inyo National Forest.
The Hastings Cutoff was an alternative route for westward emigrants to travel to California, as proposed by Lansford Hastings in The Emigrant's Guide to Oregon and California. The ill-fated Donner Party infamously took the route in 1846.
Peter Lassen, later known in Spanish as Don Pedro Lassen, was a Danish-born Californian ranchero and gold prospector. Born in Denmark, Lassen immigrated at age 30 to Massachusetts, before eventually moving to California. In California, Lassen became a Mexican citizen and received the vast Rancho Bosquejo from Governor Manuel Micheltorena. He is the namesake of Lassen County, California, Lassen Peak, Lassen National Forest, and Lassen Volcanic National Park.
The Stephens–Townsend–Murphy Party consisted of ten families who migrated from Iowa to California prior to the Mexican–American War and the California Gold Rush. The Stephens Party is significant in California history because they were the first wagon train to cross the Sierra Nevada during the expansion of the American West. In 1844, they pioneered the first route at or near what was later named Donner Pass. The crossing was a year before the third expedition of John Charles Fremont, two years before the Donner Party, and five years before the 1848–49 Gold Rush. Three other known European exploration crossings of the Sierra Nevada had previously occurred at points south of this however, including Fremont's second expedition the previous winter, at Carson Pass.
Anne Wardrope Brigman was an American photographer and one of the original members of the Photo-Secession movement in America.
Isaiah West Taber was an American daguerreotypist, ambrotypist, and photographer who took many pictures of noted Californians, which he donated to the California State Library "that the state may preserve the names and faces, and keep alive the memory of those who made it what it is." He was also a sketch artist and dentist. His studio also produced a series of stereoscopic views of west coast scenery.
Ransome Gillet Holdredge was an early San Francisco school painter, specializing in Northern California landscapes.
Sierra Club Books was the publishing division, for both adults and children, of the Sierra Club, founded in 1960 by then club President David Brower. They were a United States publishing company located in San Francisco, California with a concentration on biological conservation. In 2014 the adult division of the organization was sold to Counterpoint LLC and the children's books division to Gibbs Smith.
In the history of the American frontier, pioneers built overland trails throughout the 19th century, especially between 1840 and 1847 as an alternative to sea and railroad transport. These immigrants began to settle much of North America west of the Great Plains as part of the mass overland migrations of the mid-19th century. Settlers emigrating from the eastern United States did so with various motives, among them religious persecution and economic incentives, to move from their homes to destinations further west via routes such as the Oregon, California, and Mormon Trails. After the end of the Mexican–American War in 1849, vast new American conquests again encouraged mass immigration. Legislation like the Donation Land Claim Act and significant events like the California Gold Rush further encouraged settlers to travel overland to the west.
Cannabis dispensaries in the United States or marijuana dispensaries are a type of cannabis retail outlet, local government-regulated physical location, typically inside a retail storefront or office building, in which a person can purchase cannabis and cannabis-related items for medical or recreational use.